1. Field of the Invention and Related Art Statement:
This invention relates to an endoscope apparatus holding apparatus provided with an attaching means for movably holding the endoscope apparatus side.
Recently, there has come to be extensively used an endoscope which is to be inserted in the elongated insertion part into a body cavity or pipe cavity to observe the interior of the cavity so that an affected part may be diagnosed or a damage or the like may be inspected.
The insertion part of the above mentioned endoscope is made flexible so as to be insertable even through a bent insertion course. However, due to this flexibility, the tip side will not be fixed in the direction and will be difficult to introduce in the object direction in some case.
Therefore, in a prior art example disclosed in the gazette of West German Patent Laid Open No. DE 3405541A1, corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 4,640,124, a hollow shaft which can be passed through an endoscope is provided so that the insertion part of the endoscope may be projected out of an opening on the tip side of this shaft and the interior of an engine or the like may be inspected by using an endoscope insertion assisting means provided with a curving means on the holding side.
In inspecting such observed body complicated in the interior as the above mentioned engine, the attaching part of the above mentioned assisting means has been fixed on such selected proper place as a projection or the like on the outer periphery of the engine.
By thus fixing it, the assisting means or the endoscope inserted through it can be prevented from swinging or the like and therefore the position to be inspected opposed to the objective optical system on the tip side of the insertion part can be positively observed.
However, if the assisting means is thus fixed, the range which can be observed or inspected in such state will be restricted and the position to be inspected will not be able to be covered in some cases.
On the other hand, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,428,820 (Japanese Patent Laid Open No. 500735/1985), there is disclosed an endoscope having a curving mechanism of two steps in which the second curvable part is made rigid so as to be able to be self-erected so that the endoscope may be used even within an engine.
However, this prior art example is not provided with an endoscope fixing means and therefore has a defect that, in the case of the curving operation on the holding side, the endoscope will be likely to vibrate to make the observation or inspection difficult. Also, in the case of photographing by fitting such photographing apparatus as a camera or television camera, the picture surface will be likely to vibrate to make it difficult to obtain an image easy to see.